How To: Remove an Internal/External Liquid CPU Cooler

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A few weeks ago, I rounded up three supposedly “easy” liquid coolers, the last of which wasn’t so easy to install. Today, I wanted to return my testbed to its former, air-cooled self, but I had a full liquid cooling system running inside and outside the case. Here’s how I got rid of it without dousing the PC’s components—or my clothes—with liquid coolant.

I got a bucket (see the Electrasol bucket in the first pic). I needed this to dump the coolant into.

I twisted the cap off of the reservoir and dumped it into the bucket.

I let the reservoir refill with more coolant from the closed system, and dumped it again. I repeated this step until the reservoir didn’t refill by itself anymore.

I checked the state of the cooling system and noticed that the CPU block was completely empty. To make it easier to manipulate the tubing and get more liquid out before opening the system, I removed the CPU block from the CPU (and wiped up the thermal grease with a soft, clean cloth).

I moved the CPU block around a bit, manipulating the tubing, to get more water into the reservoir, and dumped it into the bucket. The water was almost completely gone from the tubing now.

Next, I had to start pulling tubing. Some of the cooler tubing ran right through a bracket in the expansion area of the system. I removed tubing from the lowest part of the system—in fact, I removed the reservoir completely.

A few straggling drops of liquid from the externally-mounted radiator dribbled into the bucket. I pulled the tubing through the holes in the expansion bracket, being careful not to let any liquid dribble into the inside of the computer case.

I then took my screwdriver and liberated the reservoir. After pulling a few wires that the system had required me to connect for power and monitoring, my system was free of the liquid cooling system.

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